Association of preterm birth with ADHD-like cognitive impairments and additional subtle impairments in attention and arousal malleability

BACKGROUND: Whilst preterm-born individuals have an increased risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and are reported to have ADHD-like attention and arousal impairments, direct group comparisons are scarce. METHODS: We directly compared preterm-born adolescents (n = 186) to term-born adolescents with ADHD (n = 69), and term-born controls (n = 135), aged 11-23, on cognitive-performance, event-related potential and skin conductance level (SCL) measures associated with attention and arousal. The measures are from baseline and fast-incentive conditions of a four-choice reaction time task, previously shown to discriminate between the individuals with ADHD and controls. We aimed to establish whether preterm-born adolescents show: (a) identical cognitive-neurophysiological impairments to term-born adolescents with ADHD (b) possible additional impairments, and whether (c) the observed impairments correlate with ADHD symptom scores. RESULTS: The preterm group, like the term-born ADHD group, showed increased mean reaction time (MRT) and reaction time variability (RTV) in the baseline condition, and attenuated contingent negative variation (CNV) amplitude (response preparation) in the fast-incentive condition. The preterm group, only, did not show significant within-group adjustments in P3 amplitude (attention allocation) and SCL (peripheral arousal). Dimensional analyses showed that ADHD symptoms scores correlated significantly with MRT, RTV and CNV amplitude only. CONCLUSIONS: We find impairments in cognition and brain function in preterm-born adolescents that are linked to increased ADHD symptoms, as well as further impairments, in lack of malleability in neurophysiological processes. Our findings indicate that such impairments extend at least to adolescence. Future studies should extend these investigations into adulthood

Impairments in error processing and their association with ADHD symptoms in individuals born preterm

<p>(<b>A</b>) Grand average response-locked event-related potentials (ERPs) of the error-related positivity (Pe) at the Cz electrode between 150 and 450 ms for the preterm group (represented by dotted lines), the ADHD group (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder represented by dashed lines) and the control group (shown in solid lines), and (<b>B</b>) topographic maps for each group.</p

Beneficial effects of acute high-intensity exercise on electrophysiological indices of attention processes in young adult men

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordBackground: Emerging research suggests that a single bout of aerobic exercise can improve cognition, brain function and psychological health. Our aim was to examine the effects of high-intensity exercise on cognitive-performance and brain measures of attention, inhibition and performance-monitoring across a test-battery of three cognitive tasks. Method: Using a randomised cross-over design, 29 young men completed three successive cognitive tasks (Cued Continuous Performance Task [CPT-OX]; Eriksen Flanker Task; four-choice reaction-time task [Fast Task]) with simultaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) recording before and after a 20-min high-intensity cycling exercise and resting control session. Cognitive-performance measures, EEG power and event-related potential measures, were obtained during the tasks. Random-intercept linear models were used to investigate the effects of exercise, compared to rest, on outcomes. Results: A single bout of exercise significantly (p < 0.05) increased the amplitude of the event-related potential Go P3, but had no effect on the contingent negative variation (CNV), Cue P3 or NoGo P3, during the CPT-OX. Delta power, recorded during the CPT-OX, also significantly increased after exercise, whereas there was no effect on cognitive-performance in this task. Exercise did not influence any cognitive-performance or brain measures in the subsequent Flanker or Fast Tasks. Conclusion: Acute high-intensity exercise improves brain-indices reflecting executive and sustained attention during task performance (Go P3 and delta activity), in the CPT-OX, but not anticipatory attention (Cue P3 and CNV) or response inhibition (NoGo P3) in young-adult men. Exercise had no effect on cognitive-performance or brain measures in the subsequent Flanker and Fast tasks, which may potentially be explained by the time delay after exercise.Medical Research Council (MRC)National Institute for Health Research (NIHR

Avaliação da torta de mamona e tungue como fertilizante orgânico para cultura do feijão.

Titulo em inglês: Evaluation of castor bean and tung as fertilizer organic for crop of beans

Is association of preterm birth with cognitive-neurophysiological impairments and ADHD symptoms consistent with a causal inference or due to familial confounds?

BACKGROUND: Preterm birth is associated with an increased risk for cognitive-neurophysiological impairments and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Whether the associations are due to the preterm birth insult per se, or due to other risk factors that characterise families with preterm-born children, is largely unknown. METHODS: We employed a within-sibling comparison design, using cognitive-performance and event-related potential (ERP) measures from 104 preterm-born adolescents and 104 of their term-born siblings. Analyses focused on ADHD symptoms and cognitive and ERP measures from a cued continuous performance test, an arrow flanker task and a reaction time task. RESULTS: Within-sibling analyses showed that preterm birth was significantly associated with increased ADHD symptoms (β = 0.32, p = 0.01, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.58) and specific cognitive-ERP impairments, such as IQ (β = -0.20, p = 0.02, 95% CI -0.40 to -0.01), preparation-vigilance measures and measures of error processing (ranging from β = 0.71, -0.35). There was a negligible within-sibling association between preterm birth with executive control measures of inhibition (NoGo-P3, β = -0.07, p = 0.45, 95% CI -0.33 to 0.15) or verbal working memory (digit span backward, β = -0.05, p = 0.63, 95% CI -0.30 to 0.18). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the relationship between preterm birth with ADHD symptoms and specific cognitive-neurophysiological impairments (IQ, preparation-vigilance and error processing) is independent of family-level risk and consistent with a causal inference. In contrast, our results suggest that previously observed associations between preterm birth with executive control processes of inhibition and working memory are instead linked to background characteristics of families with a preterm-born child rather than preterm birth insult per se. These findings suggest that interventions need to target both preterm-birth specific and family-level risk factors

Sensing Molecules with Metal–Organic Framework Functionalized Graphene Transistors

Graphene is inherently sensitive to vicinal dielectrics and local charge distributions, a property that can be probed by the position of the Dirac point in graphene field-effect transistors. Exploiting this as a useful sensing principle requires selectivity; however, graphene itself exhibits no molecule-specific interaction. Complementarily, metal–organic frameworks can be tailored to selective adsorption of specific molecular species. Here, a selective ethanol sensor is demonstrated by growing a surface-mounted metal–organic framework (SURMOF) directly onto graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs). Unprecedented shifts of the Dirac point, as large as 15 V, are observed when the SURMOF/GFET is exposed to ethanol, while a vanishingly small response is observed for isopropanol, methanol, and other constituents of the air, including water. The synthesis and conditioning of the hybrid materials sensor with its functional characteristics are described and a model is proposed to explain the origin, magnitude, and direction of the Dirac point voltage shift. Tailoring multiple SURMOFs to adsorb specific gases on an array of such devices thus generates a versatile, selective, and highly sensitive platform for sensing applications

Party system closure and openness: conceptualization, operationalization and validation

The degree of closure of the governmental arena is a central aspect of the stabilization of party systems, and yet little systematic effort has been devoted to its operationalization. The article proposes a new index, examines its reliability and validity, and reports the ranking of 60 party systems. By redefining the units of measurement we suggest new indicators that are uniform and transparent in their logic of construction, can be applied both to specific government-changes and to time periods, and are sensitive to the degree of change. The article finds a hierarchy among the components of party system closure, dominated by coalition formula. While new and established democracies can both produced closed patterns, the analysis of inter-war European party systems shows that closed systems are less prone to authoritarian takeover. The article demonstrates the power of inertia: the completely closed configurations stand out as the most durable ones

Serum Concentrations of Myostatin and Myostatin-Interacting Proteins do not differ between young and Scarcopenic elderly men

Peer reviewedPostprin

Urinary Volatomic Expression Pattern: Paving the Way for Identification of Potential Candidate Biosignatures for Lung Cancer

The urinary volatomic profiling of Indian cohorts composed of 28 lung cancer (LC) pa tients and 27 healthy subjects (control group, CTRL) was established using headspace solid phase microextraction technique combined with gas chromatography mass spectrometry methodology as a powerful approach to identify urinary volatile organic metabolites (uVOMs) to discriminate among LC patients from CTRL. Overall, 147 VOMs of several chemistries were identified in the intervention groups—including naphthalene derivatives, phenols, and organosulphurs—augmented in the LC group. In contrast, benzene and terpenic derivatives were found to be more prevalent in the CTRL group. The volatomic data obtained were processed using advanced statistical analysis, namely partial least square discriminative analysis (PLS-DA), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and multilayer perceptron (MLP) methods. This resulted in the identification of nine uVOMs with a higher potential to discriminate LC patients from CTRL subjects. These were furan, o-cymene, furfural, linalool oxide, viridiflorene, 2-bromo-phenol, tricyclazole, 4-methyl-phenol, and 1-(4-hydroxy-3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)-2-methyl-3-morpholinopropan-1-one. The metabolic pathway analysis of the data obtained identified several altered biochemical pathways in LC mainly affecting glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, pyruvate metabolism, and fatty acid biosynthesis. Moreover, acetate and octanoic, decanoic, and dodecanoic fatty acids were identified as the key metabolites responsible for such deregulation. Furthermore, studies involving larger cohorts of LC patients would allow us to consolidate the data obtained and challenge the potential of the uVOMs as candidate biomarkers for LC.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio